From Abracadabra to Zombies

Skeptimedia

Dr. Sudhir Shah and Prahlad Jani

10 May 2010. The
logo to the left indicates the source of the story this post
begins with.
FOX, being fair and balanced, got the story from The Sun,
the fair and balanced tabloid
from
the UK. The story begins: "An Indian holy man has amazed a team
of doctors by not eating or drinking anything for two weeks."
To be fair and balanced: this story is all over the Internet.

"The Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD)
and the NASA have obviously been taken in by the absurd claims
of a village fraud," wrote Sanal Edamaruku, Secretary General
of the Indian Rationalist Association, in a letter to the
Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes. "It is shocking to
see that government officials and scientists are so gullible
to believe that a human being can survive 60 years without
food and water! The claim does not only contradict experience
and common sense, but also our well-established biological and
medical knowledge about the functioning of the human body. It
is absolutely impossible that it is true - if it was, it would
disprove the laws of physiology and we would have to rewrite
our scientific text books!"

....The Indian Rationalist Association
has experienced specialists for such cases and a long track
record of successful investigations into similar claims. Up to
now, all of them have been exposed as frauds.

In 1999, there had been the widely
reported case of Kumari Neerja from Jalaun district (Uttar
Pradesh state), who claimed that she was the reincarnation of
the Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of letters and literature.
She stayed alone in a small closet and allegedly did not take
any food for five years and did not excrete urine or stool.
Since her managers announced that she would soon transform
into a lifeless statue of Saraswati, the police were alarmed.

In cooperation with the police, our young
rationalist investigators and physicians verified her room and
found the entry to a little toilet hidden behind a shelf and a
brick hole, through which she received food. Blood tests
revealed the presence of glucose, indicating the intake of
food. When finally a harmless gas, causing vomiting sensation,
was released into her room, she vomited pieces of chapatti and
potatoes. The confused woman turned out to be a mental case
and was admitted to the local government hospital.

In 1992, Sanal Edamaruku exposed the
godman Pilot Baba who claimed that he survived in meditation
under water for five days without breathing. Pilot Baba's
under-water feat attracted national and international
attention. He constructed a huge swimming pool in a Delhi
public park, climbed down in front of a crowd of 4000, ordered
water to be pumped in and stayed there underwater for four
days. That was at least the claim.

But Edamaruku and his assistants exposed
him. They found out that there was a special secret pipeline
connection. Though water was pumped in, the tarpaulin-covered
pool did not get wet inside, and the Baba had a comfortable
time on its dry ground. Four years later, in 1996, he tried it
again. This time he claimed to stay for four days buried under
the earth. Edamaruku exposed him again in front of television
cameras. This time he was sitting comfortably in an
underground dug-up room.

Jani's handlers did not allow Edamaruku and his associates to be
involved in the testing of Jani in 2003. Nor were they allowed
to be involved in the recent re-testing.
According to Edamaruku:

I asked to be
allowed to send an independent team to survey the room where
this test is taking place, but I was repeatedly turned down.
It is ridiculous to ask people to believe that any man can go
15 days, let alone 70 years, without food or water.

Dr. Shah has been
in charge of three similar investigations over the past ten
years, and he has never allowed independent verification. In
2000, he was asking for funds to investigate a man he claimed
got his energy from the sun, just like plants do. In 2003, he
even approached NASA for funds to investigate Mr. Jani,
claiming astronauts might benefit from the research. This
particular hospital, led by this particular doctor, keeps on
making these claims without ever producing evidence or
publishing research.

Some might find it
amusing that
the Daily Mail—not known
for its fair, balanced, and skeptical reporting—finds
the Jani story a bit of a stretch, even if it tugs at the apron
strings of little old ladies with infinite faith and a
willingness to suspend disbelief in the incredible.

update1: 16 May 2010.
Rationalists doubt claims made for 'Mataji' Prahalad Jani
The Gujarat-Mumbai Rationalist Association (GMRA) has said that
Jani's claims have never been proven....Secretary of GMRA Keeran
Trivedi said in a press release that Jani's claims have never
been substantiated, and that such
baseless superstitious claims should not be fuelled further.
The release says, "We rationalists have challenged Jani's claims
in the past as well. US-based rationalist Deepak Patel had
offered to get Jani checked in the US, but he has not responded.
At regular intervals, drama is created about Jani's alleged
abilities, but the reports of his medical examinations are never
made public. Moreover, the team of doctors is always the same,
as is the hospital."

further reading

new
Prahlad Jani in EsoWatch.com, the wiki of irrational believe
systems (From the FAQ for EsoWatch: "we are not associated
with any sceptic organization. We like many sceptic resources,
but usually they are a bit tame for our taste.") The Prahland
Jani article is very detailed and about as objective as one can
be about an incredible story where access to all the data is
limited by interested parties. Note: most of the articles on
EsoWatch seem to be in German. Of those in English that I have
looked at, most have some sort of connection to quackery in
Germany and to
Germanic New Medicine.